1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to electrical audio signal processing devices. More particularly, this invention relates to unidirectional, dynamic microphones that are used for musical instrument pickup or vocals.
2. Description of the Related Art
Unidirectional microphones are well known and widely used in the music industry. One of the most popular and widely used of these microphones is the SHURE® SM57 which effectively presents a cardioid sound pickup pattern directly in front of the microphone while minimizing the background sound coming from other directions. The unidirectional technology of this microphone is generally described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,240,883, the contents of which are included herein by reference as they help to provide a significant part of the technical background for the present invention.
Despite the popularity of the SM57 microphone, some problems have been encountered in its use. For example, its tubular and elongated shape that stretches to a length of approximately 10 inches often makes it difficult for sound engineers to mount and properly position it when they are trying to fit the SM57 into tight spaces for recording or live performances of various types of musical instruments (e.g., drum kits, and a snare drum in particular).
To remedy this SM57 mounting problem, it was suggested to its maker that they modify the SM57 so as to change its current, tubular and elongated shape so as to instead give it an L-shaped configuration which would reduce the effective length of this microphone. The maker of the SM57 responded by noting this could not be done because such a modification would adversely affect the frequency response of the microphone since it has a handle acoustic chamber, formed by the union of the microphone's headpiece and handle or base, that would not perform as designed if this acoustic chamber were to be changed. Rather than change the exterior shape of the SM57, its maker proposed that one who is confronted with SM57 mounting problems should instead consider changing to one of their other shorter length, commercially available microphones (e.g., Beta 56) which reportedly have similar frequency response characteristics to the SM57 and invariably are more expensive that the SM57 microphone.
However, even if these alternative microphones were to perform as suggested, they still might not be the ideal solution for many sound engineers, especially those who have ready access to the less expensive SM57s and are dedicated to them because of their perceived superior performance over other microphone alternatives.
Thus, despite the wide spread use of SM57 microphones, it does appear that their “tight space” usefulness could be improved upon if their shape could be modified so that they were more easily mountable in such situations.